Great Expectations by Charles Dickens Chapter 1 My father's family ...

('Let her alone,' said Joe.)'I'd be a match for all noodles and all rogues,' returned my sister, beginning to work herself into a mighty rage. 'And Icouldn't be a match for the noodles, without being a match for your master, who's the dunder-headed king of thenoodles. And I couldn't be a match for the rogues, without being a match for you, who are the blackest-looking and theworst rogue between this and France. Now!''You're a foul shrew, Mother Gargery,' growled the journey- man. 'If that makes a judge of rogues, you ought to be agood'un.'('Let her alone, will you?' said Joe.)'What did you say?' cried my sister, beginning to scream. 'What did you say? What did that fellow Orlick say to me,Pip? What did he call me, with my husband standing by? O! O! O!' Each of these exclamations was a shriek; and I mustremark of my sister, what is equally true of all the violent women I have ever seen, that passion was no excuse for her,because it is undeniable that instead of lapsing into passion, she conscioualy and deliberately took extraordinary painsto force herself into it, and became blindly furious by regular stages; 'what was the name he gave me before the baseman who swore to defend me? O! Hold me! O!''Ah-h-h!' growled the journeyman, between his teeth, 'I'd hold you, if you was my wife. I'd hold you under the pump,and choke it out of you.'('I tell you, let her alone,' said Joe.)'Oh! To hear him!' cried my sister, with a clap of her hands and a scream together -- which was her next stage. 'To hearthe names he's giving me! That Orlick! In my own house! Me, a married woman! With my husband standing by! O! O!'Here my sister, after a fit of clappings and screamings, beat her hands upon her bosom and upon her knees, and threwher cap off, and pulled her hair down -- which were the last stages on her road to frenzy. Being by this time a perfectFury and a complete success, she made a dash at the door, which I had fortunately locked.What could the wretched Joe do now, after his disregarded parenthetical interruptions, but stand up to his journeyman,and ask him what he meant by interfering betwixt himself and Mrs Joe; and further whether he was man enough tocome on? Old Orlick felt that the situation admitted of nothing less than coming on, and was on his defencestraightway; so, without so much as pulling off their singed and burnt aprons, they went at one another, like two giants.But, if any man in that neighbourhood could stand up long against Joe, I never saw the man. Orlick, as if he had been of